Teaching Alternative To Evolution Backed

Washinton Post ^ | Wednesday, May 29, 2002 | Michael A. Fletcher

[Gladwin]

Two House Republicans are citing landmark education reform legislation in pressing for the adoption of a school science curriculum in their home state of Ohio that includes the teaching of an alternative to evolution.

In what both sides of the debate say is the first attempt of its kind, Reps. John A. Boehner and Steve Chabot have urged the Ohio Board of Education to consider the language in a conference report that accompanied the major education law enacted earlier this year.....

[Gladwin]

4 of the 28 paragraphs are above. The full article is here

[Gladwin]

ping

[VadeRetro]

Intelligent-design proponents -- such as Phillip E. Johnson, a University of California at Berkeley law professor whose 1991 book "Darwin on Trial" lifted the fledgling intelligent-design movement from obscurity -- hope to bring the concept to other state curricula.

Johnson demolished here. Oh, wait! You have to settle for a sad little paraphrase of some of it, here. EsotericLucidity was too good and too new.

[OBAFGKM]

"If you are going to teach the Darwinist view that organisms may look like they were designed but weren't, then you have to allow for the possibility that they look like they were designed because they were designed,"

If you are going to teach results of two hundred years painstaking research by hundreds of thousands of scientists highly trained in a multitude of disciplines, then you have to teach what I heard last week in Sunday school.

[AndrewC]

"If you are going to teach the Darwinist view that organisms may look like they were designed but weren't, then you have to allow for the possibility that they look like they were designed because they were designed," said Johnson

That is totally unreasonable! It is certain, which means no possibility of the opposite view, that the Darwininian theory of evolution is fact, requiring no proof only evidence. The Darwininian theory states that random is what works, therefore something non-random is unnecessary. Finally, from the logical proof named Occam non-random does not exist do to its superfluous nature making all things non-designed and fully explicable by the Darwininian theory Law.

[general_re]

Memory hole bump.

[AndrewC]

Johnson demolished here. Oh, wait! You have to settle for a sad little paraphrase of some of it, here.

I see you took my advice and cited yourself. Good job!

[Snidely Whiplash]

If you are going to teach the Darwinist view that organisms may look like they were designed but weren't, then you have to allow for the possibility that they look like they were designed because they were designed,"

Truth is is that any competently designed science curriculum wouldn't even address the concept of a Designer, since it's basically outside the purview of science. But, the correct way to address it, if one chose to, would be to state that there's no positive evidence of a designer.

ID is merely a Trojan Horse to get creationism into the science curriculum.

Scientific inquiry is not a democratic process.

Snidely

[BibChr]

Oh boy; the Darwiniban is going to be all over this.

Dan

[Pete]

That is totally unreasonable! It is certain, which means no possibility of the opposite view, that the Darwininian theory of evolution is fact, requiring no proof only evidence.

This is simply untrue. Much of Darwin's work has come to be rejected by scholars and replaced with updated theories.

The Darwininian theory states that random is what works, therefore something non-random is unnecessary.

I point you to Steve Wolfram's newly released "A New Kind of Science" where he concludes that randomness in nature DOES NOT work. Check out Chapter 7.

I have a question, which I ask in all seriousness to those who hold the naturalist view for the origins of life. To what theory to you currently subscribe? I have been looking into this issue recently and it is my understanding that there have been half a dozen or so theories proposed in the last 50 years all of which have fallen out of favor. I am not looking to start a flame war here as I am actually interested in the question presented.

[Dimensio]

I'd really like to see evidence of intelligent design. Specifically I'd like to see what the theory states, what it predicts, how it can be tested and how it can be falsified -- presumably through observations that run contrary to the tests. I want to know exactly what observation would falsify intelligent design, and I've never heard anyone offer an explanation.

Really, is it so hard? What observation would prove that intelligent design was false?

You also beg questions like what the nature of this "intelligent designer" is and what methods were employed in this "design" (and how the designer was able to employ such methods), but I suppose you can address those later. You might also touch on the motives of this "intelligent designer", but that might be better reserved for philosophy.

[VadeRetro]

I see you took my advice and cited yourself. Good job!

Didn't have any choice. Sadly, it's not really a good job.

[AndrewC]

I am not looking to start a flame war here as I am actually interested in the question presented.

My tongue was planted firmly in cheek.

[OBAFGKM]

"Much of Darwin's work has come to be rejected by scholars..."

Examples, please. Your claim is somewhat of an urban legend among Creationists. The basic tenets of Darwin's writings have never been successfully refuted.

[TomSmedley]

Scientific inquiry is not a democratic process.

While evolution is the heretical faith in democracy -- unordered chaos yielding structure, order, and purpose.

Such is some folks' religion, and it's the official state church meta-narrative. But do I want my kids propagandized into a fanatical anti-christian worldview, a perspective that recognizes no ultimate beyond The State, and its pet technicians/scientists? If I sit down at the government table (public school) I have no right to complain about the menu. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Short term solution: pull kids out of public school now. Long term solution: work for the defunding of that propaganda engine. Pull the money out.

[AndrewC]

Examples, please. Your claim is somewhat of an urban legend among Creationists. The basic tenets of Darwin's writings have never been successfully refuted

Are you asking me to defend someone else's statement? A statement made to me?

[Gumlegs]

My tongue was planted firmly in cheek.

Andrew ... Andrew ... Andrew ... Some of us aren't as good as we should be at resisting straight lines.

[jlogajan]

EsotericLucidity was too good and too new.

I can't believe they deleted that brilliant post. Wow, they are desperate!

[Pete]

If you will allow me a grace period, I will be happy to post a summary of the information I have gathered. Unfortunately, I am currently at work and my notes are at home. Having said that, let me just say that a deliniation needs to be between macro and micro evolution (as you probably know). My comments were directed at the macro evolution side. Without my notes, I am somewhat hampered but let me just say that I recall that there are some prominent non-religious critics of Darwin's theories. One that I do recall off the top of my head is Stuart Kauffman. I did not mean to imply that the rejection of Darwin's theories resulted in mass conversions to religion in the scientific community (although, certainly, there are many scientists who are theist and will say that there work only strengthens their beliefs) but rather, after 140 years, new theories have been proposed to handle some problems encountered in Darwin's original work.

One site I have found to be useful can be found here: http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/korthof.htm#Wrong

I have found this guy to be extremely objective (which is rare) when it comes to this issue. Unfortunately, it seems that civil discussion of this issue has been abandoned by both sides.

As a final thought, I was wondering if you had any comments concerning my orgins of life question?

[VadeRetro]

I can't believe they deleted that brilliant post. Wow, they are desperate!

They deleted that brilliant freeper. Bigfoot was on duty and continues to get away with murder.